Longer campaigns and experience

We've been playing a single campaign for over a year now and I see a huge difference in how strong heroes can become. Especially heroes who have some potential to start with (Posessed and Vampires come to mind) who accumulate experience rather quickly can become real combat horrors.

At one point we've had a single possessed hero who has been very lucky in the early battles on the campaign AND had very strong advancement rolls. (resillience, lightning relfexes, +2 STR and +1A on top of some other skills and advancements) This hero single-handedly defeated over two rival warbands who were also around 200 warband rating.

Combined with his great claw mutation, the model had 4 attacks at WS 5 and STR 6 who always struck first. This proved too much for many of the mercenary-type warbands and after single-handedly beating off the minotaur even the beastmen player didn't want to face this monster anymore.

on the contrary, the warbands which struggle a lot are undead (if te Vampire doesn't the right upgrades, the warband doesn't get anywhere) and the non-reiklander mercenaries. Middenheimers and marienburgers don't do that well in protracted campaigs, as their advantage is very limited compared to other warbands.

Posessed, beastmen and skaven do very well and we haven't had a witch hunter or sisters of sigmar warband in our campaign to date.

Normally, warband rating would make up for such a large difference in power. In this case, however, the player with the monster-posessed is actually one of the warbands with a lower warband rating as most other models seem to die often. The posessed is worth around 60 points by himself, for a total warband rating of 160-ish. Other warbands easily reach the 200 points and often beyond that, making the regular winner also an underdog under current rules.

How do you cope with this?

We are starting a new campaign shortly and want to alter the advancement rules slightly to avoid things like this in the future. Surely, posessed may be strong and may be game-influencing but I don't want single heroes being able to face complete warbands by themselves.

We have implemented a different system for warband-rating, in which we try to get a hold of those monsters. It seems to fit better, but it still need some adjustment.

warband rating:
* sum: cost of the modell
* half the price of the equipment
* weapons used via weapons training/weaponexpert counts full
* Gromril and Ithilmar weapons costs the the basic item (half) + 5 Punkte
* Opulent coach, wyrdstone pendulum and Tarot cards doesn't count
* Advances (injuries subtract the respective amount)
+ movement -> 20 gold
+ weaponskill -> 10 Gold
+ balistic skill -> 10 Gold
+ strength -> 15 Gold
+ toughness -> 25 Gold
+ wounds -> first 10 Gold, further 15
+ initiative -> 10 Gold
+ attacks -> 20 Gold
+ Leadership -> 15 for the leader / 10 for others
+ weapon training, weaponexpert, haggle, street wise, wyrdstone hunter -> 0 Gold
https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t4739-our-set-of-house-rules

PS: Posessed and Vampires can easily be defeated with blessed water (sacrifice a weak model to get the Posessed in place, after that throw your water).

In Our Campaign i have to deal with this:
Posessed:
Great Claw, Lucky Charm, unholy Relic
+3A, +1WS, +1S
Skills: Leader, Wizard, Fear, Dodge, Step Aside, Jump Up, Resilent, Sprint, Strike to Inyour, Mighty Blow,Scale Sheer Surfaces , Jump
Spell: Word of Pain
(this is the last state i have from him... he is now even more dangerous, he has maxed out his Exp)

vince wrote:

How do you cope with this?

For the most part we don't!

Flame On don't have a real problem with over-powered warbands because we tend to have a definite end-date for each campaign cycle; with objectives to "win" the campaign that are clearly spelled out before we start (Normally winning is based on controlling territory on a map but it has, on occasion, been based on possession of an artefact or achieving certain targets). These campaigns last about 2 to 3 months, then we have a short "build" cycle where we repair damaged terrain or add new bits, then start a new campaign.

We tend play once or twice a week on average so I think this means most of us play about 15 to 20 games with a warband. Inevitably though one or more people will not be able to play as much or will choose (or be forced!) to re-start their warband in that time so not all are even that experienced.

frequent short campaigns keep the power levels down and keep the interest of those who don't do so well up (as they know it will all re-set soon and the playing-field will be level again).

Having said that...

If you really like playing with uber-powered warbands (lots of emotional investment in your characters for example!) then how about special scenarios - large monsters or multi-player hordes vs. single superplayer type affairs?

I take it you don't play very often if a year long campaign has warband ratings of 160. We've been playing for 7 weeks and my Lizards just got to the 300s.
How many games have you all played in the year?

Dealing with monsters
1--Shoot them. This is the preferred tactic of the Mercenary warband.
2-Bait them. Always try to have a throwaway warrior that can draw a charge to a shooting or close combat ambush.
3-The Angry Mob. If you out-number them, use your advantage. Make a monster killer squad and make sure that the monster and the squad always meet. Numbers don't always win, but they usually do.

We play once or twice a month, so the 200-rating warbands have 10-15 or so games behind their belt. Add to that that our game group tends to be unlucky on the serious injury charts, this keeps the amount of warband rating rather low.

The top warband has something along the lines of 246 points, where the lowest warbands circle around 150ish or so.

Something that may affect the number of warband ratings is that we play with a new equipment list, in which some prices are significantly higher than normal, in particular one-handed weapons.

The hard thing about 'balancing' games like Mordheim is the mix of play styles and house rules. Your uber Possessed is a Mid-Game Monster to my group because our perception of campaign time is different from yours. We play 14 week campaigns with 1-3 games a week possible. We had a Vampire a couple of campaigns ago that got T5 after the first game. He only lost once in 17 weeks of play, But he also got an Ogre Bodyguard after the first game and a ghoul hero after the third. Scenario and opponent choice almost always favored his warband and when it didn't the weather would. (My goblin pirates got him in a river scenario--not much cover, slower boat movement. It was foggy.)

Anyway I have never seen the emergence of a mean character as the fault of the game, it is usually a matter of luck and warband mix. We have players who do well with whichever warband they choose, but they won't choose certain warbands. (They choose Skaven, Undead, Dwarfs, Elfs and Reiklanders mostly.) We also have players who do poorly with any warband they choose.

What Hired Swords do you use? A Witch with the Blind spell usually tames a Monster character pretty quick. (Thus people hate witches...)
Why is shooting ineffective versus this character or other similar characters?

The equipment list. Higher costs for equipment mean that Mercenaries are at a bit of a disadvantage unless some costs are lower since they live and die on their equipment choices.

My soon-to-be sister in law had a A3 chaos-style Pit King with Frenzy with a with the skill that lets flail last every turn, and several good S skills. Also her game group counts Ithimir as light armor, so 4+ save as well. The rest of her warband was a Pit King delivery device.

To limit the crazy number of attacks we changed Frenzy to +1 attack only back in 6th edition Warhammer.

My group doesn’t play with end dates to campaigns. We have played on and off for years with a stack of different Warbands each. We have some heroes with 60+ XP. One has a Captain with about 80XP. Almost max stats and multiple injuries (Blind in One Eye, Hand Injury, Smashed Leg, ect.) We named him “Lucky”. One of the Possessed Warbands has Possessed with 2 Great Claws and Scorpion Tail (Very expensive when hired). It is very experienced now. I believe it has a WS 7 and T6 and a lot of Attacks, and skills. It is very Vicious. It alone, took out half of my well experienced Skaven Warband one game. The answer to this Monster, came in another game when an Alliance formed against the Greater EVIL. Several Troll Slayers with the Monster Slayer skill, hit the battle field. It’s the first time I saw a Possessed scared, 4s to hit and 4s to wound. One Troll Slayer received an Honorable Death. The Possessed was OOA, and then Sold to the Pits. That poor Pitfighter was eaten alive. It was Glorious! Unfortunately, the Possessed got all kind of XP. and made him harder to tackle.

But that’s the answer to your Possessed. Skilled TROLL SLAYERS!

Von Kurst wrote:

I have never seen the emergence of a mean character as the fault of the game, it is usually a matter of luck and warband mix. We have players who do well with whichever warband they choose, but they won't choose certain warbands. (They choose Skaven, Undead, Dwarfs, Elfs and Reiklanders mostly.) We also have players who do poorly with any warband they choose.

This is so very, very, very true.

I am well know for only playing Orcs and Goblins (I have 6 differently themed O&G warbands... and counting!) and I have had some campaigns where I've had some luck early on and I've had the monster warband: maxed-out numbers with a Troll and Warlock, Pit Fighter and Ogre Hired Swords... And I've had others were EVRYTHING went wrong ALL the time. Luck is a big part or Mordheim (Thank Gork!) and you can't judge the game or any given warband on the results of one campaign, let alone one game!

The problem I have with this is that I have players refusing to play that player solely because of that character. This is why we are starting anew with a new set of house rules that should limit these excesses.

Yes, it’s true that a skilful player might be able to face such a monster. It’s not immortal, but it’s powerful enough to ruin the game experience of some players.

We might want to start with closed-end campaigns to give something to play to and give players some incentive not to get too attached to their heroes.

you should give these players advice against this enemy.

if most warbands start using blessed water the posessed (or Vampire) will crumble.
Additionally you could use another underdog system. We chose another system, because we wanted the games become fair. The normal system give a warband a bonus after they got a heavy beating. We give rerolls for different rating (we use another system, so our numbers don't correspond) and/or hired swords/dramatis personae for free for this one game.

We have an open campaign with some Players with around 2-5 games and some over 30 games. I have for this reasons 3 warbands, so i can face enemies with different warbandrating (one with around 20 games, one with 6-7 games and one nearly new). So far our System seems to work out.

Mordheim is Strategy, from Warband setup, to table terrain (type and amount). There is no hard and fast rule about what type and amount there has to be on a table. I’ve read here and other forums that a table has to be packed with ruins and debris. I’ve seen the drawing map of Mordheim, I’ve seen sections with what appears to be complete buildings and open looking streets. Which brings me to your “Monster” Possessed, why go after that one only? Go after the others in the Warband. Make that player route because the others in the Band are OOA. Block it with a wardog or two and run your members around it to the others in the warband. Run your guys around a building where that Monster isn’t. It’s a good strategy. One Monster can’t stop all everyone in every scenario. Eventually, the one Monster Hero will stand alone. One Hero can’t get enough Wyrdstone to replace a Warband. I haven’t read if there a minimum warband size, other than at start up. I don’t know what the Possessed Monster’s Ld is, if its still 7 or 8, it can still fail a route check easily. Don’t Possessed still have to make “all alone checks”? Go after the others in the band and make it hurt. Even if the one Possessed alone survived and won the Scenario, and then rolled 6’s for exploration for 3 shards, its still only 75+1D6 gold with Ruined Hovels. That’s not much to buy other members and equipment. The Warband would mostly die out for lack of funding.

If the Warband disbanded, I wouldn’t want to let such a Beast with that reputation to go to waste. I’d add it to a Random Happing, where this Monster would be in the city somewhere sometime. And give it the bonus of “No Alone Check”, for this and maybe your next campaign. My group has done this, its fun. Just a side note: My group also got tired of Powerful Heroes going to the Pitfights and beating the low level Pitfighter to a pulp without hesitation. We started adding random advancements to the Pitfighters to make them a little tougher. We had a Random list of the advanced Pitfighters to roll against, including the Ogre Pitfighter from the Pitfighter Warband.

The Possossed may be tough but not indestructible. Let the Bodies hit the floor!

Shadowphx wrote:

Don’t Possessed still have to make “all alone checks”?

No they don't. [Edit: I am wrong. They do. Sorry for the confusion.]

Strategy is the key. Many players have a set way of approaching this game or any game and a change isn't on their agenda. I think I'm great at strategy (evidence to the contrary not withstanding), but during a game I will overlook the obvious or follow a bad plan to conclusion because I thought it would work. From my personal experience blaming the imbalance of the game is easier and more popular than blaming oneself.

Massed Blessed water will really put a crimp in the day of a Possessed or vampire, but you do have to use a fair amount of it - generally a good idea to have it on each of your heroes so that at any given point in time you will be able to get three or more heroes into range. Sisters and Witch-hunters excel at this because for them the Blessed water is common.

It is true that possessed at that level are very powerful, but consider the power of a human with that amount of gold spent on them, and that amount of lucky level-ups. You could get a human with S4, 4A, Mighty Blow, Strongman, and Web of Steel. Give him an Ithilmar DHW that is a club and you have a reasonable chance of insta-OOA goodness. You will be dicing off for who strikes first, but some Crimson Shade will sort that out.

Ostlanders, of course, will have their super-powerful monster-hunting beerbelly skill to take down such monsters.

Von Kurst wrote:

Shadowphx wrote:

Don’t Possessed still have to make “all alone checks”?

No they don't.

Are you sure they don't? I can't seem to find anything in the rulebook that says they are immune. It says they cause fear so they would be immune to fear, but I don't think the All Alone test counts as a fear test.

Vamps have the rule that says they are immune to psychology so they are immune to things like All Alone, Frenzy, Hatred, etc. but I can't seem to find anything that says the possessed is immune to psychology.

That being said Possessed to have access to combat skills and there is a combat skill that can make you immune to All Alone.

Perhaps your rulebook is more up to date than mine? What version do you have? We also have a tendency to miss FAQs so possibly it was in one of those.

"We've been playing a single campaign for over a year now and I see a huge difference in how strong heroes can become."

"Middenheimers and marienburgers don't do that well in protracted campaigs, as their advantage is very limited compared to other warbands....Posessed, beastmen and skaven do very well..."

Be careful about generalizing from a single campaign experience. People do it all the time (Skaven are broken because they just spanked my warband - aieee!). As Von Kurst said, strategy, tactics, and luck all play a big role in which warband comes out on top in any given campaign. Adopting houserules intended to boost or nerf a warband based on the experiences of a single campaign is usually a Bad Idea.

Incidentally, I have kicked buttskies with a Marienburger warband, and I have seen a friend's Middenheimers stomp anything that blundered near it into mush.

Lord 0 wrote:

Are you sure they don't? I can't seem to find anything in the rulebook that says they are immune. It says they cause fear so they would be immune to fear, but I don't think the All Alone test counts as a fear test.

Vamps have the rule that says they are immune to psychology so they are immune to things like All Alone, Frenzy, Hatred, etc. but I can't seem to find anything that says the possessed is immune to psychology.

That being said Possessed to have access to combat skills and there is a combat skill that can make you immune to All Alone.

Perhaps your rulebook is more up to date than mine? What version do you have? We also have a tendency to miss FAQs so possibly it was in one of those.

I foolishly didn't LOOK at my rulebook because I was so sure of myself. I hate when that happens. My bad. I got the idea into my head somewhere but not from my rule book.

mweaver wrote:

Incidentally, I have kicked buttskies with a Marienburger warband, and I have seen a friend's Middenheimers stomp anything that blundered near it into mush.

Oh yeah, Marienburgers can be deadly. That +1 to rare trade may not sound like much, but over the length of a campaign it can really build up. It means that a Marienburger hero with no other enhancements is twice as likely as a non-Marienburger to find a rare 11 item and three times as likely to find a rare 12 item.

The most graphic example of this is one of my earliest Marienburg warbands (now long since retired) that had all heroes mounted on warhorses, in gromril, with lances (+2 Str and +2 Str on the charge*) and able to cast as least one spell each through their armour**.

That 100 gold may not seem like much, but if you work it right that early advantage can be leveraged into a larger advantage and played right you can *keep* that advantage for the whole campaign.

In the end we decided that the warband left Marienburg and went to the Border Princes to carve out a kingdom for themselves. They ended up founding the Arcane University of Thaumaturgy and became the background for my fantasy army; an all-wizard empire army**.


* We had never played fantasy, we didn't know what they were supposed to be like.

** Crossbow men and handgunners are wizards with staffs, pistoleers are wizards with dual wands, birdmen of Catrazza are wizards on carpets. Cannons are giant crystal thingies like a fire-prism cannon. State troops are clay golems, no priests, flagelents, etc.